Proper Perspective

Dana Nessel is the first Jewish Attorney General in Michigan history, as well as the first openly gay statewide elected official in Michigan.  While in private practice, she was the lead attorney for the case which became a precursor to Hodges v. Obergefell, the Supreme Court decision which banned prohibition of same-sex marriage. But she is "wrong" on  Israel (AIPAC!), so damn her to hell!

A Democrat, Nessel recently appeared on the podcast of  The Atlantic's David Frum. In her last remarks, Nessel made a controversial statement for which she is being ripped by online enemies of Jew- uh, er, Israel, such as this sarcastic one:

DSA needs to back off Israel. The Democrats can't lose Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Who would support Democrats without Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel? There would be riots in the streets if we lose Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. https://t.co/6mlum02c7l

— Joe Wrote (@joewrote) August 27, 2026

As seen in the video/tweet, Nessel comments 

 I’ve said this over and over again, that when a Black person says, That phrase that you’re using, or the way you’re talking about this issue, to me, is racist. I’d like you to stop doing it—we respect that. When we’re talking to somebody in the LGBTQ community and say, I don’t like the phrase that you’re using, or, That term is offensive to me, and here’s why—we respect that in the Democratic Party. We say, Okay, I’m not going to use that phrase anymore. I didn’t realize that it was offensive to you. I’m going to stop. But this has been an outlier for me. I have people saying, You are not going to tell us what you deem to be anti-Semitic. We’ll decide what’s anti-Semitic. That’s not up for you, the Jewish population, to decide. And I find that to be very off-putting and offensive. And I think that’s totally unacceptable.

But the last thing I will say is this, if that’s the deal that has to be made—and I’ve been really candid about this—I was Jewish before I was ever Michigan attorney general. I’m going to be Jewish afterwards. I was Jewish before I was ever a member of the Democratic Party, and if I have to, I’ll be Jewish afterwards, too.

This is not a good thing. One black person does not get to say "this is racist"- so shut up. One LGBTQ person does not get to say "this is offensive"- so shut up.  And the "Jewish population" does not get to say "this is anti-Semitic"- so shut up.  Some things are racist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic and thus should not be repeated. But the criteria must not be, as a society, whether feelings will be hurt. Those feelings are subjective and will vary from individual to individual. 

Of course, this does not apply to when one is dealing privately with another, wherein politeness and civility must rule. But for too long, the woke left has been the language police, setting the rules for discourse as it sees fit.  Too often, that has meant condemnation of an individual for saying something which offends (or which the left and center left believes will offend) one black person or one gay person, somewhere.  Voters notice and have spanked Democrats for this illiberal, political correctness.

Now this narrow-mindedness has infused the anti-AIPAC community, in which "but AIPAC"  has become the left's analogue to the right's "but George Soros."  It has obscured other issues, such as the need to regulate artificial intelligence, which Nessel emphasizes when noting

I don’t know if any of it matters if we have no regulations of any kind on AI, and we end up in a situation where literally, I mean, you just saw over the weekend they had the robot competition in China. If you have literally armies of robots that are driven by AI that are able to—and I don’t mean to sound too crazy here—but, like, enslave the human race, I don’t think that’s the craziest idea out there. And I’ve actually heard a lot of these AI CEOs talk about that. They’ve talked about how AI could result in the end of humanity.

Climate change. I mean, every day we are seeing the devastation that’s brought upon us. I don’t know how much longer the human race is going to be able to continue if we don’t take serious measures to combat climate change.

The pro- "Palestine," crowd, though often congratulating itself for its progressivism, can fall short. When the GENIUS Act, which reduces regulation of artificial intelligence, recently was passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President Trump, one of its supporters was Representative Ro Khanna of California, who touts his opposition to Israel.

Nessel, however, is not an elected official in California but in Michigan, and so

I’ve said to Abdul, and I’ve said it multiple times, you can’t make AIPAC the central villain in every story. When you’re talking about health care, what does AIPAC have to do about that? When you’re talking about affordable housing, when you’re talking about medications that people can’t obtain, or people who’ve been price-gouged or environmental issues that we have, like, what does AIPAC have to do with any of that stuff? But, I got a text recently from his campaign, and it said, “We’re fighting back against AIPAC, Mike Rogers, and Donald Trump.” In that order. In that order. And—

Okay. So the impact that this is having to us can’t possibly be overstated. I mean, you have people who are going to lose everything, everything, everything, right? They’ll lose their businesses, they’ll lose their homes, they’ll lose their health insurance. So these are real issues that I know that Mike Rogers is going to be terrible on, and will do anything that supports the president no matter how ridiculous his foreign policy may be in a way that is so detrimental to us in Michigan. And I think that Abdul is going to stand up to that.

Still keeping things in perspective, Nessel, while decrying anti-Semitism in her own Party, argues that Jews are

already not wanted in the Republican Party, and I think that is, you know, essentially a party of fascism. And we know about ll the excuses that they make on trhe far right, andhow they embrace the Nick fuentes and Candace Owens and all the people, and Tucker Carlsons, all of the enormous anti-Semites on the far right.

Dana Nessel, ineligible to serve another term as Michigan's top law enforcement officer, notes "I was Jewish before I was ever Michigan attorney general. I'm going to be Jewish afterwards" because "my Judaism is so fudamental to who I am, and what my beliefs are."   Yet, she recognizes that Mike Rogers "will do anything that supports the President" and

keeping a Republican majority in the Senate is incredibly dangerous. I think Mike Rogers would be a rubber stamp for all of the worst excesses of the most corrupt administration we’ve ever had in American history. So he is a danger. He’s an existential threat to the continuation of the United States as whatever form of imperfect democracy we are right now.

This is not a typical endorsement of a candidate from one's own party. This is far more meaningful because Dana Nessel is speaking to a particular segment of voters, individuals strongly identifying as Jewish. And she is saying that despite the loathing of Israel and, sometimes, of Jews by elements of her own party, grave issues such as A.I. and climate "are of such enormity"  that they are

going to have to be considerations for me. And I would say to my fellow Michigan Jews who are members of the Democratic Party, or who typically vote for Democrats, these should also be considerations for you. We shouldn't just be thinking about Israel or even the safety of American Jews when we have all of these other issues that are also incredibly important.

That is someone committed to both her co-religionists and the best interests of the American people. The latter concern is alien to many of her critics.

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